A King Of Comedy: ‘Funny People’ Is Adam Sandler’s Finest Performance
His detractors may argue that Adam Sandler plays himself in every film he makes; rarely straying from the lovable-schlub-with-anger-issues he mastered in Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer. But in Judd Apatow’s Funny People, he almost literally plays Adam Sandler. His character is George Simmons, an ageing comedian who’s become a millionaire starring in dozens of awful family movies. Sound familiar? The film begins with George, lonely and disillusioned with the comedy world, receiving a seemingly terminal diagnosis. George isn’t happy to be dying, but he doesn’t seem particularly unhappy either. The world around him is no longer under his control; his style of narcissistic buffoonery has lost its appeal; again, sound familiar?
George hires aspiring standup Ira (Seth Rogen) as a joke writer, assistant and – ultimately – friend. George introduces Ira to the big-leagues of comedy: private jets and corporate gigs with James Taylor. As Ira becomes enamoured with this world; we begin to appreciate George’s cynicism. Telling jokes to a room of drunkards and jetting between mansions in LA and New York are somewhat mutually-exclusive. George’s standup has lost what little edge it had to begin with, and Ira is in danger of the same. Of the actual comedy featured in the film, most of it is desperate: Ira’s routines are exclusively about his genitalia, while his roommate (Jonah Hill) tells similar jokes – with the added bonus of being overweight. Meanwhile, their third friend (Jason Schwartzman) is embarrassing them all in the lead role on NBC sitcom Yo Teach. Comedy is dead, and – based on the jokes George and Ira share in the film’s touching final scene – that’s not going to change.
But Funny People isn’t spoiled by not being tremendously funny. It works on a much deeper level, and Apatow’s decision to cure George of his illness halfway through is a risk that pays off tenfold. No longer facing his mortality (God knows 80 minutes of that was enough), George takes Ira to visit his former flame (Leslie Mann) and her kids (Apatow and Mann’s real daughters): so begins the film’s second chapter, a whimsical family comedy that climaxes with the return of Eric Bana as Mann’s husband, delivering the finest performance of his career and causing us to question why he gave up comedy to begin with.
Yet, despite its U-turn tonally, Funny People doesn’t fall into Apatow’s usual trap of becoming a totally different film-- Sandler and Rogen’s sensational performances, obnoxious but sympathetic, keep it rooted in its themes. George, forced to interact with the children, has to acknowledge his own selfishness and assholic personality. While everybody cries over one daughter’s performance of “Memory” from Cats, George checks his phone. He’s seen better performances. We can all relate to this. Ira, a hybrid of Young Apatow and Rogen himself, has his own issues: a blooming relationship with Aubrey Plaza’s character comes and goes throughout the film, while he tries to maintain comedic integrity in the face of Hill’s recruitment to Yo Teach.
At almost two-and-a-half-hours, Funny People is no less inflated than Apatow’s other films, but – unlike Knocked Up or Trainwreck – the material is weighty enough to warrant it. Interludes involving George’s back-catalogue of films, such as talking baby comedy ReDo and the beloved classic Merman, provide sufficient amusement even when the on-screen standup doesn’t. Eminem and Ray Romano cameo, and the music (by Schwartzman) is lovely.
Let me know when Sandler makes another film this good.
